I’m Actually Having Fun Playing a Splinter Cell Game
Sunday, October 29th, 2006
I’ve played every Splinter Cell game in the series so far, but Double Agent is the first one that’s grabbed me like this. Previously, the farthest I got was the third or fourth mission in. I simply lost interest. There was no real story and it seemed to jump around so much that it ended up confusing me instead of enticing me. I need more than just stopping bad guys to keep me interested. And Double Agent has done just that.
They’ve added a bit of a personal side to Sam Fisher and you find yourself working for the bad guys this time around. But at the same time, you’re trying to prevent them from fulfilling their ultimate goal. There are a few moments where you’re left with only a few seconds to make a major decision that could sway your favor on either side drastically.
Deep down, the gameplay is basically the same as the previous games. Lots of sneaking, picking, hacking goodness as you’d expect. But one thing that really surprised me was playing mission in broad daylight. I’m on the final mission now and Sam’s even wearing sunglasses. A definite change of pace.
Once I wrap up the story mode, I’ll be jumping into the multiplayer end which also looks very promising.
I’ve seen quite a few of you on my friends list playing Double Agent - how are you feeling about it?
24 people have had something to contribute so far.
I’m totally stoked on this one as well. I’ve only got to spend a couple hours playing it so far, but it is definitely the best in the series.
I definitely see some replay value already in this game as there appears to be a couple of different ways to achieve all the objectives.
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I rented it for the multiplayer (which is incredible) but I got drawn into the single player for the exact same reasons as you.
I’m not sure if that means I should buy it or not with so many great games looming on the horizon.
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@Jeff: Yeah, I’ve already thought about replaying it as well. I want to unlock all the gadgets now that I’ve got all but 4. Man, having the mechanical lock-pick and auto-hacking device is the best shit ever!
@Andrew: I’m totally looking forward to the multiplayer, but I always like to get through the single player stuff first.
I actually bought this one, although I didn’t intend to. Rogers still doesn’t have it in stock! I figured if I really wasn’t into it, I would just trade it in and put the cash toward Gears of War, Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hark’s Project 8 which I’ll be picking up next week! (!!!)
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Ahh man, I have so got to get this game. I’ve played all three games so far and must of clocked at least 500 hours in total with them. I don’t know what you mean by lack of story, PTs was a bit weak but the original game and CT both had fairly good plots (espcially compared to other games). How many hours has it taken you so far to complete Matt? Thinking bout renting it.
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I’ve seen so many commercials for this..Looks great. Man, I need to get a PC.
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@Luke: Yeah, I just never found the plot to anything to get excited about. Where as in DA, I’m actually hooked because of it. Not sure how many hours I’ve logged so far. Probably about 10. I think the last mission is a 3 parter.
@Paul: No you don’t. You need to get an Xbox 360. DA hasn’t even come out yet for the PC yet and Call of Duty 3 isn’t being released for PC at all. If I was still a PC gamer, I would have missed so much.
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I’m relatively new in the console arena (last console I owned before my 360 was an Atari 2600 …) so I haven’t been all that familiar with the Splinter Cell series before Double Agent. None the less I still picked up the game and was immediately hooked.
I bought the game on a Friday evening and had the single player finished by Monday evening, I just couldn’t keep my hands off of it! I totally agree on replay value. Will likely go through it again on a higher level of difficulty. I thought character development was great, and the story line kept me interested. There were certainly moments in this game where I almost felt like I was watching a movie and not even so much a participant.
As for the multiplayer, it’s still all about stealth … just a completely different ball game from the singleplayer. It’ enjoyable, but it hasn’t won me over. I’m sure I’ll be playing far more COD3 and GOW multiplayer in the coming weeks.
In the end though, I would have bought this game even if it was a singleplayer only. For sure one the top 360 titles for 2006.
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Ah, forgive me for my ignorance then. I’m going to wait until the PS3 and Wii and their respective launch titles are out until if I decide which if any is worthy of my money.
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I didn’t really have more than a passing interest in Double Agent, but now I really want to give it a shot.
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Well, I finished it last night and I must say, I’m even more hooked now! The ending was great, but due to all of the various directions the plot could have taken, I want to go back and take those alternate routes to see what happens.
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Wow, that was fast. I’m only through the third mission so far. I gotta log a bunch more hours this week and get it finished up; NFS: Carbon comes out on the 1st, so SC:DA will be getting pushed aside.
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How long did it take you to completely play through the single player? How many different difficulty levels are able to be played and which one did you play?
Some friends on my buddylist are playing the mess out of this game.
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ok, thats it I am going to go buy double agent right now.
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I’m loving DA also. I don’t have a 360, but I have it for the original Xbox and I’m still loving the game. Right now I just finished the forth mission (Money Train). In co-op, I just passed all the Iceland missions (there are 4) and am looking forward to the Penitentiary co-op mission.
You’re right on about DA being amazing. The other stories were good, but this one drawls me right in. It has to be good because my brother is playing and he hated all the other SC games. I also appreciate that there are 12 co-op missions, since co-op is one of the best parts of the game.
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Geez, these Tom Clancy games are killing me. I just got my 360 a month or so and have slowly been going through that fantastic Ghost Recon. I’ve been playing the Rainbow Six: Vegas demo over and over since it came out (which is kind of bizarre cuz when I heard about it I had very little interest in it but it’s really tight controls and team management has won me over).
And now Splinter Cell:DA (which I just bought a few hours ago).
How am I supposed to save for Christmas for my family with all this great games and then COD3 and Gears of War comin out in a week or so.
I need to get a couple of side design jobs or something just to afford my gaming habit. =)
If anyone wnts to hit up some SC:DA co-op I’m on Live as “jessejanderson”
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Wow, it sounds surprisingly good for a Splinter Cell game…
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@Rapture: Tough to say. Probably about 12-15 hours. I was completing all of the missions except gathering personal info in the HQ missions, although I ended up with about 3/4 of it anyway. I played it on Normal and there’s the typical 3 difficulty levels.
@Ronald: Good to hear it’s great on Xbox as well. I heard that like GRAW, it’s an entirely different game on the other platforms. Sounds like there’s still similarities, though. I’m waiting to get my hands on the wireless headset before I play the multiplayer and co-op missions.
@Jesse: It’s true - the Tom Clancy games have gotten a whole lot better with the latest releases in the series. I haven’t played Rainbow Six Vegas yet, but I never liked the others in the series. Mind you, the last time I played one was years ago. I’m sure I’ll be into this one.
I replayed a couple missions last night to get the last “starred” objectives (which unlock gadgets and upgrades) and got the Collector achievement. It was crazy fun redoing them with all the extras that weren’t available before. The sticky camera is rad shit!
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Man is that good to hear as I went through exactly the same thing. I’ll have to check it out now, see if there is a demo on GameSpot.
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Matt - Yah I hadn’t played the Rainbow Six series since… the original Rainbow Six on PC. Heard some good press about the demo and downloaded it (actually had to create an account from another country because for a few days it was available everywhere EXCEPT the US because it was on the Xbox Mag CD, but now it’s available US too). It reminds me a lot of GRAW but the controls are just a lot tighter, one of the things I love is holding the left trigger will ’stick’ you to surrounding cover and releasing the trigger will release you. Although the walk into cover and stick method in GRAW works pretty decent, I loved having the absolute control that RS:V gave.
Controlling the AI is a lot better in RS:V as well. You can set your team of 2 guys to wait at one door while you double-back to another entrance to a room. Then you check out the room with your optic cable under the door and “mark” priority targets for your buddies. Then you have them toss in a flashbang and breach (or toss in a grenade and breach, or setup an explosive on the door and breach, etc) while you sneak in the backdoor and catch them from behind.
Nothing cooler than the feeling you get after a well-planned flawless room breach.
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I only got this game because it came with a free 12+1 month card and it’s alright I guess, but I haven’t really been blown away by it.
I’ve gotten to the second mission in the terrorist base, and I’m kind of bored with the game already.
Anyone want to buy a copy?
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I don’t mind if you delete this, I’m just posting another message because if there’s a way to edit your posts… I can’t find it.
Anyways, I see you’re getting Gears Of War and Tony Hawk (obviously).
a) Make sure we get a few games of multiplayer in together. I need to be able to play with someone I know isn’t an asshat.
b) Have you considered Guitar Hero 2?
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@Jesse: Nice, I’ll definitely have to give it a shot. I downloaded the demo and tried to play it while I was making lunch one day last week, but I realized pretty quickly that it’s not one of the games you can just jump in and out of. So I’ll try it again another time.
@Maguire: I hear you on the multiplayer. I jumped into an online game of NFS Carbon last night and wanted to kill myself. The language and just plain ignorance is astounding.
I will not be picking up Guitar Hero 2. Not my thing at all.
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Well I’ve just completed the last level of DA and… I don’t know. Out of the 4 games I’d rank it either 3rd or more likely 4th. It just didn’t seem Splinter Celly to me, the levels were boring compared to past versions and the so called choices seemed to only vary what cut scene you got. I’m going back through it again now, but the absense of the much talked about daylight mission really hit the nail on the head for me. The last level in the xbox game the JBA suddenly find out your a terrorist, no matter how well you’ve maintained your rating! And the ending was a jip, felt just like Halo 2 all over again.
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Well, I got the game, finally. Two days later I beat it. I rather enjoyed it but I thought the ending was lame and rather open ended, will enjoy seeing where they take the series. In my opinion this is the best of the 4 when it comes to the story, but I like the simplistic gameplay of the first one(no eev, or other fancy spy tech, just Sam sneaking around with a pistol). I thought I might replay it and see what is different, not much, A few different scenes so far, haven’t finished my second time around though.
also, I thought that not keeping the trust meter in balance would maybe cause me to go full rogue or something, but apparently it just causes these pain in the ass time runs where you have to get to the nearest laptop asap. Its really stupid, but I guess thats just the incentive to stay in balance.
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